Our beach house is actually on the beach.
It's on an island in the Salish Sea across a channel from another island.
Several years ago, we had two friends from our IBM days spend the Fourth of July weekend with us.
During the weekend one of the two, a long, long term American Citizen from, originally, Egypt, got on his cell phone and talked to his sister for an hour or so.
I think she was in Egypt.
They talked in Arabic.
Later in the day the biggest Coast Guard boat I have ever seen appeared just off our mooring buoy and stayed there for hours.
It comes back every year for the Fourth.
It's out there now.
Our marine tracking app doesn't see it, but we do.
*****
A lot of years ago, back in our IBM days, we lived in Boca Raton.
We had several cats.
Lucky was the odd one.
That's why we loved him.
One day he was in our shower catching a wonderful insect that he had discovered in there.
For the rest of our time in Boca, Lucky would sit and stare at the shower wall that had once had that bug on it.
It never came back.
But Lucky kept hoping.
In fact, he used to sit in the shower when we moved to New Jersey, Spokane, and finally, Seattle.
Staring at the shower wall.
That bug never came back.
*****
It's an odd thing, I guess.
I actually expect more out DHS than I expect out of Lucky, our now deceased, special - odd - cat.
At least Lucky actually captured the bug - once.
